1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capture apparatus, such as a digital camera, or the like, capable of communicating with a printing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, a printing system composed of a digital camera and a printer (a so-called “direct printing system”), has been proposed, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications No. Hei 10-229544 and No. 2002-94910. The direct printing system dispenses with any operation on a personal computer and, therefore, can be said to be a printing system that is suitable for users who are inexperienced in operating personal computers or for users who are desirous of printing, with simple operation, digital images taken with digital cameras.
The conventional direct printing system is capable of printing a taken image that has been compressed according to a JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format (i.e., a compression format using a JPEG compression algorithm (for example, conforming to ISO/IEC 10918-1:1994). However, the conventional direct printing system is incapable of printing a taken image that has been compressed according to a RAW format (i.e., a compression format using a lossless compression algorithm). Therefore, in the conventional direct printing system, if a compression format of a taken image selected by the user is the RAW format, the taken image cannot be printed.